Seven Deadly Sins of Strategy Games

[FullAuto]

1. Too much scripting - This artificial environment takes decision-making away from the player. Not only is there only one path to victory, but the player

[Pete]

No offense, but I definitely don't agree with the last point.

 

X-COM is a strategy game - it would have been a much shallower experience without the story.

[FullAuto]

I don't think he's arguing about stories per se, but how they are implemented:

 

Picking a specific example, how much better of a game would Rise of Legends have been if Big Huge Games had given up on creating a story-based campaign and instead iterated on the excellent turn-based Conquer the World strategy layer from Rise of Nations? Ironically, the campaign mode was my favorite way to play RoL. I loved that you could only acquire technologies and advanced units on the strategic map between missions, which helped simplify the core RTS game. However, I enjoyed the campaign in spite of the story, not because of it. The key point here is that, for the sake of chasing a story, Big Huge Games missed a big opportunity to match a great core RTS game with a simple, overarching strategy layer that could be infinitely replayable. They are not alone; almost every other RTS developer seems to be falling into the same trap, and it is time for this trend to stop.

 

Certainly you haven't offended me, I didn't write it.

[Knan]

"Too much stuff" ... gah? The only game I've ever felt like that is whenever I make a try at Hearts of Iron.

 

He seems to want more variations of chess and/or risk to play. I feel that's a needlessly narrow view.

[Space Voyager]

I agree with all points, BUT.

 

Before a game gets to "too much stuff" is a long way to go. And there is practically no limit to what the game has if the UI is user friendly and most of the stuff is streamlined. TW series and SotS+BoB+AMoC is stuffed with game content but it is very manageable. But these definitely aren't the games I'd play for 15 minutes, just to relax a bit.

 

Also I agree with Pete on story. Story is hugely cool IF it doesn't interfere with gameplay. Sometimes a game can get completely linear because you have to follow the story and that is NOT a good thing for a strategy game - or any other type. TW for instance has ages of history as the story yet it is told before the game starts, than you can alter the events as you see fit.

[FullAuto]

Before a game gets to "too much stuff" is a long way to go. And there is practically no limit to what the game has if the UI is user friendly and most of the stuff is streamlined. TW series and SotS+BoB+AMoC is stuffed with game content but it is very manageable.

 

Think his point is about games where you have things like 100+ units and really only five or six basic types, with very little to differentiate them, because there's sod-all difference really. The sort of game where you don't know what particular unit of that class to use, but it actually makes little difference because they're all so similar. As he says, if the player can grasp all the possibilities mentally, then it's not too much. If they can't, it is too much, and things have been included solely for numerical bragging rights over other games.